We finally have a mathematical formula for intelligence that works for a computer chip, a human brain, and an LLM.
April 14, 2026
Original Paper
A Quantitative Definition of Intelligence
arXiv · 2604.10873
The Takeaway
The study defines intelligence as the ratio of independent outputs to the system's total description length. This moves intelligence from a vague concept to a substrate-independent formula that can be measured across any system.
From the abstract
We propose an operational, quantitative definition of intelligence for arbitrary physical systems. The intelligence density of a system is the ratio of the logarithm of its independent outputs to its total description length. A system memorizes if its description length grows with its output count; it knows if its description length remains fixed while its output count diverges. The criterion for knowing is generalization: a system knows its domain if a single finite mechanism can produce correc